What's wrong with blue clothes for girls?

[StormGlass]

I was out shopping today, and while in Boots, stopped to look at the baby clothes to see if there was anything I liked for DS.

A couple came along, with a baby girl in a pushchair, and started looking at the clothes too. The dad picked up a white sundress with a pattern of blue birds on it, and said "How about this for [popular girls name]?" The mum took one look, and said "No, it's got blue on it"

I found that a little depressing. Why can't a little girl have a sundress with blue on it? Surely no-one's going to think she's a boy, given that it's a dress, just because it's got blue birds on it?

I find this obsession with colour coded baby clothes very annoying.

[plutocrap]

I put DS in tights because of his inability to keep socks on ( though that's not an issue now with DD), and he had some gorgeous, warm-looking colours in his first couple of winters, including plum, dark pink, brown and purple

Now he's adamantthat his favourite colour is dark blue and he wnts me to like pink and wear skirts . I'm a bit upset that I've somehow raised a gender fascist!

[blonderthanred]

Men wearing tailored pink shirts in certain social contexts is one thing, buying from the 'girls' rail for little boys is quite another.

T-shirts with pink and purple butterflies on? Pink babygros? Ime even a white vest with a tiny pink logo would be seen as beyond the pale.

[JessePinkman]

Makes me wish I had a little one to dress again, now they all chose their own clothes. I loved it when they were small.

[JessePinkman]

I bought all my dc start-rite Jo shoes. In navy.www.startriteshoes.com/girls/jo

Same as Prince William had when he was little, got more eyebrows raised for my son.
They are the best shoes for little toddlers.

[blackcurrants]

I grew up amongst a lot of retired army officery, public-school-boyish, rugger types who wear pink shirts a lot. Pink was totally alright for men (in a tweedy sort of way) when I was a child. And it was (just) pre-Disney-princess mania, too - so I dodged that one.

When I was pregnant with DS1 and we decided not to find out the gender some (dim) acquaintances were genuinely scandalised: "How will people know what to buy?" ... honestly. We bought lovely things in yellow and green and red and any colours we could find that weren't pastel pink or blue. DS looked lovely in a hot pink sleeper, as I recall.

Now he's bigger it's really hard to find nice clothes for him. I buy dresses for my many nieces, too, so I've also seen how hard it is to get non-pink tat for them. As is an Auntie's privilege I tend to get them stuff on sale from slightly posher shops, as xmas presents or the like, and I've noticed that Hanna Anderson, Polarn O Pyraet and other expensive places do good non-pink stuff.

I have friends who work hard to get non-pink things for their daughters - gleefully announcing on fb "Great red and green dresses at H&M" or whatever. When shopping for my son I find the dreary slurry of dark colours and camo shite is sooo depressing. It's not like they looked at the colour wheel and said "okay, anything but pink is fine for little boys!" - anything bright, pattered (other than plaid or camo) or even 'properly fitted' is deemed too effeminate by most of the shops I can afford. And trousers must only be khaki, navy, or denim, apparently. Unless you want camo. Urhghgh.

[StormGlass]

Ilovemydog, lots of chaps wear pink shirts round here too.

I work with a number of very masculine, rugby playing men who regularly wear pink shirts whilst walking around in a cloud of testosterone, but this does not change DH's opinion. (my colleagues play rugby in their spare time. I do not work at a rugby club)

[greenhill]

My DD is particularly attached to some Thomas the Tank Engine tops and I will be able to pass them onto my DS easily. She robustly argued that they weren't her brothers' clothes when a girl asked about them in the park. I also got her Postman Pat, Bob the Builder and Thomas pyjamas a few years ago. The pink comments have only started since school, but she wears these things at home happily.

[Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme]

Chaps obviously. Blardy iPhone.

[AnnaBanananana]

someone needs to tell my DH what a raving lesbian I am! I own no pink clothes but quite a few blue dresses!

I've had someone I know take a toy out of DS's hands because it was pink and go and find him something blue - that same woman was totally baffled by what to do when he later found a toy with both blue AND pink on it! really it stopped her in her tracks!

[Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme]

Loads of men wear pink shirts, salmon pink with a nice pair of cords and a tweed jacket seems to be de rigeur for chaos round here.

[greenhill]

Slight side track here but my MIL said she was going to buy DS woolly tights for winter, because my DH had worn them. I guffawed first, then politely said that if she could find some for him, I would put them on him. She was surprised to discover they had gone out of fashion since the 70's.

One of my uncle's was dressed in silk dresses and tights until he went to school. He was the fourth boy. His brothers used to say that their DM had wanted a girl to taunt him. He is only 10 years older than me.

My DS wears pink, orange, purple etc and has long hair. He is often mistaken for a girl. My DB, some male cousins and nephews all have long hair. Maybe it is a regional thing. My parents have wrung their hands about their grandsons hair many times. Especially when tied back with a ribbon or a scrunchie at home as they are teenagers!

[leguminous]

When we went to get D's first pair of proper shoes, there were some dinosaur trainers we liked and I asked if she could try them on. The assistant didn't want to give them to me because they were boy's ones. I had to insist.

Pretty sure there's no huge difference between the feet of male and female toddlers.

Good point, blonder - I'm anticipating a lot more drama if our next child is a boy and we put him in our daughter's hand-me-downs. A lot of her baby stuff was from the boy's section anyway, as the colours on that side of the aisle weren't quite so anaemically washed out, but more than half her clothes now are clearly meant to convey that she's a girl. I find myself holding back from the idea of putting a future son in her flowery pintucked tops, even though I passionately believe he should wear them if he wants to - mostly because I don't like the thought of him looking back at baby photos and being uncomfortable. :( Fucked up all round.

[StormGlass]

Agree, it's much more acceptable for girls to wear blue than it is for boys to wear pink.

DH is a grown man, and reacts with horror at the thought of wearing a pink shirt or tie. Apparently people might think he's gay
He's being completely ridiculous in any number of ways, but there's no reasoning with him when it comes to pink clothes for men.

[marriedinwhite]

My mother said I was too plain to wear pink. It's my favourite colour and when I was 28ish I had a pink kitchen installed in my house. It went beautifully with the pink carpets and curtains and the pink and green sofas . Oddly my mother was horrified when I put dd in her older brother's dungarees and bought a few pink t shirts and socks to go with them.

I let dd wear as much pink and purple as she wanted as a child though and her bedroom is litterally like looking into a bag of marshmallows. She's rather off pink now though and is trying to be a bit "goth"

[blonderthanred]

Isn't it the case that usually its ok for girls to wear 'brights' or boys' clothes but it's completely unacceptable for boys to wear pink? This is more sinister to me as it seems like people are terrified of boys being seen as girlish / weak. I always buy gender neutral for friends' kids but wish I could go further than that. But that's one boundary it seems impossible to break.

[plutocrap]

Yesterday, DD was wearing a navy top and cardi with purple trousers (ruched at the ankles, too!), and still was referred to twice as a boy! I normally correct people when she's wearing all blue (or some bits of brown or green or another bloody colour), but yesterday I just couldn't be bothered.

In any case, it won't hurt her to get a bit of "male-spectrum" interaction: don't people do more dynamic things to boy babies, rather than just gurning at them about how pretty they are? Yuck. I do think my DD is lovely, but I would bloody like her to be interesting and clever as well!

[DawnOfTheDee]

A lot of my DD's clothes are blue because, well, I like the colour and think they look nice on her. A lot of people refer to her as 'he' though as I think they use colour as an indicator of sex. Bit daft really but it doesn't bother me and I don't mind correcting them.

[devilinside]

Fortunately DD's favourite colour is blue (only because she knows it's my favourite colour). I think a lot of gender stereotyping does come from parents.

I personally never wore an item of pink clothing until I was 18 (when hot pink was in fashion)

[HipHopOpotomus]

Nothing is wrong with blue for girls, but do bear in mind that some people are simply daft.

[IWipeArses]

DD 11 months wears very little blue. Because she mostly wears hand me downs from her brother and I never put him in blue.

[Machadaynu]

Almost everything we have bought in the last three months has been blue, if there has been a choice, as the kid has decided that it's her favourite colour.

It's quite hard to get blue things for her if you want dresses or knickers, but socks, trousers, shorts and t-shirts are easy, we just get 'boys' ones.

That said, her current shoes were a bargain. Little velcro-sandal things with embroidered flowers - very girly. Except the flowers are blue. Reduced to £3.99. The pink ones weren't reduced at all. Bargain. Of course next year they just won't make the blue ones.

[grimbletart]

Can anyone explain when this obsession with pink started - presumably it was some marketing ploy?

My 'children' are in their 40s now and when they were small in the 1970s there was an amazing range of patterns and colours in baby, toddler and children's clothes. I clearly remember them in (for example) bright orange babygros, ones that were navy and red check, others that were stripy (like a wasp) and so on.

Their budgie bikes (the fashionable kids' bikes at the time) were in electric green and although there were some pink toys it was not an epidemic of pink fluff as there is now. So much more choice.

And yes, they had plenty of blue clothes as well....

Now you go to choose something for a toddler and you are either blinded by a sea of pink or depressed by rows of camouflage (for boys).

I sometimes wonder if it is a ghastly plot to shove us all back in our gender boxes, a bit like the mentalist Australian archbishop in the thread on marriage vows...

[bobbledunk]

I love light blues and navy on dd, it's stupid to not let a girl have something because it has blue in it! I hate too much pink. Children should be dressed in a variety of bright colours.

[FoodUnit]

I believe campaigners (like Pink Stinks) are starting to have some success in changing the ridiculous extremes gender colour coding got to at the height of the backlash against feminism a few years ago. When my nephew got a scooter from my mum they only sold them in blue or pink, but now they have a variety of colours and you can even buy new parts to repace the blue or pink of the originals, so my daughter got a much more interesting-looking one for her birthday. I think generally there's a lot less 'backlash' behaviour all round as feminism is being embraced again (albeit some are getting sucked into a confused pomo version ).

[catkind]

Hah, I've been known to be like that about clothes that have pink in them for my daughter. Just as unreasonable, but I don't like pink, I don't like the fact that so many girls clothes have pink somewhere about them and I also don't like being told she "should" wear pink. She has some lovely blue/green dresses.